


Archetype

by goldarrow



Series: Mirror!verse [3]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-10-01 20:03:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldarrow/pseuds/goldarrow
Summary: Helen's back in town.





	Archetype

**Author's Note:**

> Lyle belongs to fredbassett, who kindly lends him out.
> 
> Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures, not me. Unfortunately. Sigh. I mean no harm, I make no profit except satisfaction.

“Hello, Stephen.”

Stephen sighed. He didn’t have time for this. The shop was closing, and he had less than a minute to find what he was looking for. “Helen. I’m going to start calling you ‘the bad penny’.” He turned to face her across the aisle. She was leaning casually against a rack in the bookstore, her countenance tight with its most analytical look. This time she was actually wearing beautifully fitted slacks and a soft blouse instead of her typical outdoor clothing. It suited her.

Then she smiled. That suited her less. It was a harsh smile, as if she wasn’t used to using that expression any more. “What brings you here?” she said. “I would have thought you’d finally embrace the electronic age, considering everything. What you are.”

“You don’t stop, do you?” he asked with annoyance, knowing she was referring to the fact that she had cloned him from the original, deceased, Stephen Hart. And that she had played ‘splice the genes’ with his DNA afterwards. “Go away.”

Her smile widened. It was even more repellent, teeth showing but with no joy, no amusement, only calculation in her eyes. “You’re looking for a book. We’re in the poetry section. Nick loves the Gaelic poets. You want a gift for him.” She shrugged. “How am I doing?”

“Well enough,” he replied dismissively, then turned his back. “Go away.” Concentrating on the shelves in front of him, he bit back a triumphant grunt as he reached for the biography of Ewen MacLachlan. Then he tensed as he felt the warmth of her body moving closer.

“You’ll want this information,” she whispered in his ear.

Damn the woman. She never gave up. Pulling the book out and tucking it under his arm, he turned back. “What. Do. You. Want?”

She reached up and stroked his cheek, and he jerked away from her hand. Mouth tightening, she stepped back. “Fine. You’ll regret rejecting me.”

Cursing under his breath, he grabbed her arm and spun her around, knowing he was falling for her tired ploy, but unable to take the chance. “No more games. What do you want.” It wasn’t a question.

Her expression melted to a faux seductiveness as she moved closer again. “There’s an anomaly about to open.”

He looked around so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash, then steadied. “When and where?” He shook her. “And if you’re actually capable of speaking clearly, do it now.”

“When?” She stroked his arm, making his teeth ache from the harshness with which he started grinding them. “Right now. Where?” She smiled slowly and stepped back. “Right behind you.”

Stephen spun around as the electric feeling of an anomaly washed over him. “Get out of the shop! Close the door and lock it!” he yelled to the last clerk still in the store, who was standing, gaping at the floating shards of time. The poor girl had just been waiting for him to leave, and then this had to happen. “Go! Go!”

The girl stared wildly at him for a second, then ran for the door. Ignoring her, Stephen pulled out his mobile and hit the emergency speed dial. Thanking everything he could think of that the anomaly itself wasn’t visible from outside the shop, he spoke rapidly, hearing the anomaly detector alarm going off in the background at the ARC. “I’m looking at it. Blackwell’s Bookstore, Charing Cross. Get here, now!” 

He heard a nasty, well remembered chirping, chittering, almost hooting noise. Damn it. Raptor. Dropping his mobile and the biography, he grabbed a revolving wire rack at the end of the shelves and knocked a few bits off it, keeping the main post as a combined spear and club. He was barely set in time. Two Utahraptors leapt from the cloudy centre of the anomaly, straight at him. Stephen took a deep breath and felt his enhancements kick in as he started to move as fast as he could. With lunch having been so long ago, he probably had less than thirty seconds before he’d be out of energy, but he blessed Ditzy and Dr Grant for insisting over the last few months that he practice with Helen’s genetic tinkering. He’d finally reached the point where he could tell when he was accessing the speed and strength that her Future Predator modifications to his DNA had both gifted and cursed him with. 

Stabbing quickly with the improvised spear, he ran it through the chest of the first raptor, then spun and smacked the second as hard as he could across its upper neck. Both were down in less than five seconds, but he must have been hungrier than he’d thought he was. He felt himself draining as he grabbed first one, then the other, and slung them back through the anomaly to the Cretaceous. As he sat down hard on the floor, he heard the rapidly retreating echo of hooting chirps from the other side. If there’d been a pack, they’d decided not to come through after the loss of their scouts.

“That’s rather disappointing,” Helen said disgustedly from behind him. “You’re fairly quick and reasonably strong. But it doesn’t last nearly long enough. Too bad. Another failure.”

Stephen faked more weakness than he felt as he leant back against the shelving. “Helen, you’re a bitch,” he said softly.

As he’d suspected she would, she moved closer to refute his statement. “I’m honest, Stephen,” she said innocently. “You’re just a disappointment.” Voice hardening, she added waspishly, “As always.”

He grinned. Just one more inch… She leaned close to whisper her next words directly into his ear, but he didn’t give her the chance to drip more poison. Grabbing her arm, he yanked a display ribbon from the shelf behind him and had her ankles and wrists wrapped up like a package before she could do more than squawk.

“I’m sure I am,” he said insouciantly as he collapsed again, this time for real. “And, to be honest, I’m glad I am. At least to you.” He closed his eyes for a second to gather strength. “I really don’t like you any more.”

“And I’ve learned everything I can from you,” she replied darkly. “So I don’t need you any more.”

Stephen opened his eyes, then felt them widen impossibly as he stared down the barrel of the pistol she’d managed to pull from somewhere in her perfectly tailored outfit. He barely had time to think that he really didn’t want to know where she’d got it from, and that she was going to shoot him through the brain this time. Would he be able to come back from that? Would he ever be able to access memories that resided in regenerated brain cells? He didn’t want to find out. Ducking away frantically, he knew he was too late when he felt the slap against his head and everything went dark.

xXx

Stephen woke up, gasping in terror. He slid back across the floor, staring around wildly. Where were the creatures? Why wasn’t he in the cage room? Or at least the bunker? This wasn’t where he was supposed to be. A bookstore? How? Why wasn’t he bleeding? Why wasn’t he in agony still?

A voice beside him caught his scattered attention. “Stephen, Stephen, please, hear me.” Helen.

He took a few more gasping breaths, hands frantically checking his body and limbs for damage, then once assured he was really in one piece, he was able to concentrate enough to look over at her. “Helen? What are you doing here? Where are we?”

“Stephen, we were buying books. Someone came in to take hostages, then the anomaly opened and raptors came through. They took him back. I think they’ve eaten him. Stephen, please, untie me. We have to get out of here. The ARC will be here soon. They can’t find us.”

“Why not?” he asked, still befuddled. “We’re on the same side.”

“No,” she said urgently. “You’re a clone. They want to kill you. And imprison me. Please, Stephen. We have to go.”

Hearing voices outside, and the somehow very familiar clatter of military equipment, he shook his head. Something was wrong. She was lying. She had to be. Maybe he was a clone. Maybe they wanted to lock her up. But he refused to believe that Nick Cutter would allow them to kill him. It didn’t feel right. She didn’t feel right. His gaze fell on the biography on the floor. MacLachlan. Nick’s favourite poet. 

“No,” he said, pulling himself exhaustedly up to lean against the shelving. “I don’t trust you. You’ve lied to me too many times. I’ll take my chances with them.” Hearing the door slide open, he raised his voice. “We’re over here. The anomaly is here, too!”

Captain Ryan and Lieutenant Lyle spun around the shelves, eyes flashing as they saw Helen lying on the floor, struggling madly, and the anomaly flickering, visibly weakening behind her.

“Well done, Stephen,” Ryan said quietly as Lyle moved over to Helen, telling her to shut the fuck up as he traded the improvised bindings for real zip ties.

Stephen stared at him, hoping that Ryan’s familiarity was a good thing. “Um…” he said.

“You died,” Ryan said flatly. 

Stephen gaped at him. “I don’t… know?” He knew his voice was weak. He felt weak. Very, very weak and tired.

With a sharp nod, Ryan pulled a small recorder from his pocket and held it out to Stephen. “Headphones on, listen to this,” the captain ordered.

Obeying without even thinking of objecting, Stephen placed the tiny speakers in his ears and hit Play. Nick Cutter’s voice washed over him, the soft Scottish accent smoothing out the harshness of the words as he gave Stephen a brief synopsis of the last year since the horrible day he’d originally died in the cage room: Helen’s creation of him, his initial fear of discovery, his and Nick’s re-connection and new life together, Helen’s kidnapping and DNA modification, all of it spoken quickly and firmly. The words sank into his mind, opening pathways, rebuilding memories. He removed the headphones and handed the recorder back to Ryan, nodding, then felt a cold shudder wash up his body. He convulsed, the world receding down a black tunnel until there was nothing left but darkness and a feeling of being squeezed in a giant hand.

An indeterminate time later, he gasped in a mighty breath and opened his eyes slowly. Abby Maitland was leaning over him, holding a bottle of an odd-looking drink.

“Stephen, drink this,” she said gently, lifting his head so he could sip. 

Whatever it was, it started to energise him rapidly. He sat up and finished the liquid, suddenly remembering the first time he’d tried it. Smiling, he thanked her, then saw Cutter standing behind her, looking terrified. He held out his hand, and Cutter, with a breath that almost sounded like a sob, stumbled forward and dropped to his knees.

“You’re okay,” the professor whispered. “She shot you in the head, and you still remember.”

Stephen nodded. “Yeah.” He reached out for Cutter to help him stand, and held his lover close. “Yeah. I’ll always remember. As long as you’re here to remind me.”

Turning to see Helen being marched off by the Special Forces team, he snarled vindictively, “I hope they lose her down a deep, dark hole.” 

Cutter dropped his head to Stephen’s shoulder. “So do I, lad, so do I.”

They turned and walked away as the anomaly behind them flickered one last time, sucked itself inside out, and disappeared.

Fin.


End file.
